The Mac app collects nothing.

Last updated 8 November 2026. This policy covers the Sideleaf app for Mac, made by Madanu Akash, an independent developer. Questions about privacy: hellosideleaf@gmail.com.

Your notes

Everything you write in Sideleaf is stored only on your Mac, inside the app's sandboxed container. Notes are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before they are written to disk. The encryption key is kept in your Mac's login keychain. We cannot read your notes, and they are never sent to us or to anyone else.

What we collect

Nothing. Sideleaf has no account, no analytics, no advertising, no crash reporting of its own and no third-party code. It does not send your notes or any information about how you use it over the network.

Spotlight and reminders

If you turn on "Show notes in Spotlight search" in Settings, macOS keeps its own searchable copy of your notes' text on your Mac, outside Sideleaf's encryption. It stays on your Mac, and turning the setting off removes it. Reminders are scheduled with macOS notifications on your Mac and show the note's title and first line when they go off.

Apple Intelligence

If you use the writing actions (tidy up, fix spelling, make a checklist), Sideleaf uses Apple's on-device model through the Foundation Models framework. The text is processed on your Mac.

Purchases

Purchases are handled by Apple through the App Store. We do not receive your payment details. Apple's privacy policy applies to App Store transactions.

Feedback

Send Feedback in the app opens a new email in your own mail app, addressed to us, with the Sideleaf and macOS version filled in. Nothing is sent unless you send it, and you can edit or remove anything first. We use what you send only to reply and to improve Sideleaf.

Crash reports

If you have chosen to share analytics with developers in your Mac's settings, Apple may pass anonymous crash reports to us. You can turn this off in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements.

Exporting and deleting

You can export your notes as Markdown, plain text or rich text at any time. Deleting the app and its container removes your notes from your Mac.

This website and the email list

The pages themselves do not load a separate analytics service, and the site no longer has a signup form. Before launch, the signup form was provided by Kit and may have used a cookie or similar identifier to count form visits and record the referring page and URL parameters. Cloudflare also handles the normal technical details of each page request, such as your IP address, to deliver the site and protect it from attacks. See Kit's privacy policy.

If you joined the email list before launch, Kit (Kit Inc., in the United States) received your email address and the form data needed to record and manage your subscription, and holds them for us. Kit sent a confirmation email so you could verify your address. We plan to send one email to the list to say the native Mac app is available. Each email has an unsubscribe link. We never sell or share the list, and we keep your address until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it at hellosideleaf@gmail.com. The app itself never sees or uses your email address.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date.